Changan Ford to start building third plant this week

Ford Motor Co and its Chinese partner Changan Motor will start building their third plant in Chongqing, China on September 25 to catch up with the sales growing pace in the market.

Construction on the new plant, which is designed to produce 100,000 vehicles per year initially with the potential to expand to 300,000 units a year in future, will be completed by the first half of 2010. The new plant will mainly produce SUVs, crossovers, Focus and Mondeo models.

The new plant would boost Changan Ford Automobile Co’s total production capacity to 510,000 units, paving the way for further expansions. The joint venture’s existing two plants are located in Chongqing and Nanjing respectively, with capacity of 250,000 and 160,000 units each.

Sales of Ford brand cars at Changan Ford grew 111% in August from a year earlier to 21,127 units, representing the seventh month of year-on-year growth for the U.S. automaker in China.